[00:00:00] Angela Berkey:  Are we segmenting out our highest value guests, and do we treat that guest a little bit differently? So this can be a great opportunity to do some kind of outbound initiative before a cyber sale goes public.

[00:00:17] Intro:  Welcome to the Hotel Moment podcast presented by Revinate, the podcast where we discuss how hotel technology shapes every moment of the hotelier’s experience. Tune in for our guest episodes where we explore the cutting edge technology transforming the hospitality industry and hear from experts and visionaries shaping the future of guest experiences. Alongside our conversations with guests, we have episodes for you hosted by Revenator, Brenna Turpin, on resources available to you all. These resource packed episodes have granular advice on overcoming industry and operational challenges so you can emerge as a hotel superhero. Whether you’re a hotelier or a tech enthusiast, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in and discover how we can elevate hospitality together.

[00:01:02] Brenna Turpin:  It’s crunch time. Well, maybe not because I’m sure a lot of you prepped ahead for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Travel Tuesday. So take this special webinar episode as the bow to top your already winning holiday marketing strategy. Because the big idea here is to avoid being just another email in your guest’s inbox or just another phone call your guest receives. It’s about purposeful, value driven communication. And how you communicate that value in your email and voice channel campaigns with things like personalized upsells and attribute based selling is what will be the key to grabbing your guest’s attention. It’s why dedicated campaigns are so important. As an example, hotels that failed to launch dedicated Black Friday campaigns in 2024 reported a 1.2% decrease in direct bookings. It may not seem like a lot, but every chunk of revenue counts when it comes to your hotel’s profitability. The webinar we’re featuring today from our hotel moment deep dive series gives you some last minute ideas to wrap up these campaigns in a nice bow and make sure they resonate across channels. And there are lessons here for your marketing strategy beyond holidays. Lesson for you to sharpen your communication and use your guest data as a backbone for all your personalized campaigns. Good luck this holiday season.

[00:02:17] Anisha Yadav:  Thank you for joining us. This is our third webinar of the Black Friday, Cyber Monday series. Super excited to have some special guests with us today. So our topic today continues to be on the holiday theme. So I know everybody is prepping their campaigns and getting ready for Black Friday, Cyber Monday. So today, we’re gonna focus on some last minute moves that you can kind of implement, tactics that you can have for your properties to really move that conversion across your property campaigns. Look at some more examples from our special guests on our session today. So quick Angela Berkeyductions. I am Anisha Yadav and I lead product and customer marketing at Revinate. I’m really excited to have Angela Burkey join us and I’ll let her Angela Berkeyduce herself.

[00:02:58] Angela Berkey:  Hello, everyone. My name is Angela Berkey, and I am the senior director of reservation sales and CRM for CoralTree Hospitality and super excited to be here. So thank you.

[00:03:08] Anisha Yadav:  Awesome. Melissa, you wanna go next?

[00:03:10] Melissa McMullin:  Yeah. I am Melissa McMullen. I’m a product marketing manager at Revinate, and I work on our voice products, reservation sales, and Resforce.

[00:03:19] Anisha Yadav:  Thank you so much, ladies. Super excited. Let’s kick off with some industry trends. These shouldn’t be new. Some of the things that we’ve been reading at Raven Aid specific to what’s happening in the market. So the first one talks about from McKinsey and Company, they came out with it. It’s about personalization. We’ve heard a lot about that through webinars like these and industry sessions as well. There’s a lot of focus on not just one size that fits all, but really understanding where your guests are coming from, who are these micro segments that’s actually converting for your properties. So making sure you understand their booking behavior, their spend pattern, what is it that’s actually driving that demand for your property. And the second trend from Deloitte speaks to how do you activate that data. Right? So they’re seeing a shift in marketeers who are investing in in those technologies that help them activate that data. And from Deloitte specifically, they also call about more trips are happening, customers are taking longer trips, so guests are booking longer stays. And it’s totally the experience that’s moving the needle. So it’s not so much about the destination, but that one coffee shop in Spain that was trending on TikTok, that’s driving the demand to that city or that destination. So it’s really about the experience that’s moving the needle for our guests. And lastly, from CoStar, this was big at the Hotel Data Conference in Nashville as well. We are seeing a shift in experiential travel and that’s making our commercial leaders think through that lens too. So what else can they do to really move that total RevPAR for the property and think about the packages, the experiences that they can deliver that can move the conversion for their hotel? So we’ll talk a bit about that in a bit as well. So just wanted to share that out. Angela, any comment on the trends that you’re seeing?

[00:04:57] Angela Berkey:  Yeah. I mean, we are definitely seeing those trends as well, and we’ve really leaned in this year in 2025 into our guest journey. So really thinking through what unique experiences can we provide our guests, everything from prebooking all the way through departure. And I think what other partners, what can we post experientially on our websites that give our guests a reason to visit are really key factors and is gonna really be a focus moving forward.

[00:05:26] Anisha Yadav:  Right. And I think also, like, thinking through not just the property, but the destination, like you said, what are the other activities and events happening in the city that you’re in and building that into your communication across the guest touch points. So I think taking that a step further, what we’re looking at now on this slide is data from Coolstar again, speaking about food and beverage revenue growing really fast compared to rooms. Again, the purple bar represents a revenue per available room, and the green bar kind of shows you the food and beverage revenue. So if you see that year to date so I think this was published in September, 2025, we’re seeing an uplift of about 20% already in food and beverage revenue. And like we’ll see in the next slide as well, with FIFA coming in next year, there will be more demand into this experience and food and beverage element of it. So further in 2026, that line should be going further again upwards. Again, some other data and themes that we’re seeing from AHLA here that talks about same expediential travel, food and beverage, that’s really gonna drive the needle and making sure that your operations team, your GMs have those technologies to deliver the experience that you’re promising in the forefront. Sustainability and cleanliness is obviously number one for hotels as well. And then understanding the preferences and the buying behavior of this new gen z and millennials is gonna influence a lot of your activation experiences at the property level. So, again, understanding the experiences and also having the technology and tools to deliver those experiences on property is gonna be key. And super excited again. So these dates are out. I think all hoteliers in the industry have been watching it very closely. Already, we’re seeing an uptick of about 48% in ADR for destinations where the FIFA games are happening. So you see those plotted here on the map. So FIFA is gonna be in all of these host cities. So on the right, we’ve kind of mapped out the dates where important dates to watch out. So I think if you’re a commercial leader, you wanna make sure you’re tracking these dates for your cities and really preparing for the experiences that you can deliver at your property and how can you monetize the wallet share for all of the guests or all of the fans that are gonna be in the cities as well. So with that, I’ll pass on to you, Angela, to talk us through some of the outbound strategies for CoralTree.

[00:07:39] Angela Berkey:  Thank you so much, Anisha. Really appreciate that Angela Berkey. CoralTree really leans into the outbound revenue initiatives. And I think before we get started, it’s important to know what we utilize for the revenue products first and foremost. So, of course, we use revenue sales platform, which is key to really understanding the leads, what our guests are looking for, getting that Yummy revenue data, both for bookings and nonbookings so that we know what’s working and what’s not, as well as the CRM. This is very key for us. We recently went all in this year with Revinate for our CRM for independent properties, and that’s gonna be really great because it’s gonna go hand in hand with that reservation sales product. And then finally, we do utilize the Revenit surveys, which is key as well now that the CDP is coming along and we’re all installed, and we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But those are the three products that we really use, and we feel very grateful to be partners with Revinate to help us mix be successful. That’s awesome. And so before we dive into those cyber sales and travel Tuesday trends, I think it’s important to highlight the everyday outbound initiatives, which will make us successful throughout the entire year. So these are the three areas that we really think of for day to day outbound. The first one is the Resforce leads that come back to us. So, again, utilizing Revinate, Resforce for our overflow partners. We do see Resforce as an extension of our team. So if Resforce isn’t able to book something, they will push that lead back to us. We’re able to do that outbound call. We really see these as our warmest leads and our best opportunity because there’s been a recent conversation. And so this is probably, I would say, a good 50% of the importance of outbound. And then moving on to nonbooked leads from the previous day, here, it’s really important to be lockstep with our revenue management team. Oftentimes, there’s some kind of hurdle and some reason why we weren’t able to book it. It could be a minimum length say. It could be a pricing, yielding decision. So really working with revenue to say, okay. How do we remove this roadblock? That becomes our opaque strategy. And so the public doesn’t necessarily see it, but we’re able to close that sale and also help the guest. And we want them to stay with us, so it’s kind of a win win there. And, finally, our inventory openings that might happen are pattern management. So I know there are stories all over about group wash and then what happens with that. So we recently, uh, Hotel Polaris, which is here in Colorado Springs, had group wash. They immediately started dialing for dollars, as I say, and we’re able to help fill those rooms in conjunction with the front desk team. We have perfect sales. So that’s a great example of how we can really ensure that we’re optimizing any wash that might happen and also opening up patterns in our tape chart. So if we just move a few things around, will that open up some opportunities for us to outbound and, of course, optimize our business?

[00:10:41] Anisha Yadav:  Yeah. That’s a great example. And I think we also have another customer here in San Francisco, similar story, GroupWash. And it was for in the week for the week. And similar to your example, Andrew, they were able to kind of activate their reservation sales team and also do, like, an email campaign for that software Monday, which was a neat period for them within the five days that was approaching in. So great example of having tools that you can use to kind of be agile to the changes in your on property occupancy and implement these campaigns to fill, like you said, dial for the rooms and get that demand in for your properties.

[00:11:14] Angela Berkey:  Yeah. For sure. Glad everybody’s using that. Everybody should be using it if they’re not. So we really you know, I think these are the next kind of things to think about here. Repeat guests, of course, are most loyal guests. We really like to look at them as their own segment, if you will. Have they rebooked? So looking at what their booking anniversary is, have they rebooked already for this coming year or for a need period? And if that hasn’t happened yet, that’s a great opportunity to say, okay, team. Here’s a contest or here’s an incentive to go after, um, see if we can get those reservations booked. And then busy season, of course. Sometimes here, it’s not so much as a discount, although sometimes it can be. But busy season really is, are we calling the guests that booked last year and offering them the courtesy to book that inventory before it sells out? So we wanna give them that preferred opportunity to book, and those guests feel recognized and seen and heard. So that can be very successful. We don’t want them to miss out, if you will. And then, of course, our cyber sales, which is going on right now for most of us. And so I think taking a look really at the segments here and seeing, are we segmenting out our highest value guests, and do we treat that guest a little bit differently? So this can be a great opportunity to do some kind of outbound initiative before a cyber sale goes public or to what does our communication look like on a marketing standpoint here? Again, just how are we leaning into that highest value guest? So that can be a good success strategy. And then post stay. So because we use the Revinate survey platform, we’re really excited now with the CDP to start pulling in some additional numbers. So, like, for example, if NPS is a one to 10 scale, we might communicate whether it’s an outbound call or a marketing campaign with a 10, which is our highest score, differently than if somebody gives us a five or a six. That might warrant a phone call or a different kind of communication. So I think having that integration is gonna be really key for us moving forward.

[00:13:21] Anisha Yadav:  Right. It’s almost like the loyalty play for your portfolio where it’s not so much about the points and the redemption and the status. It’s like, how do you deliver that experience and how do you kind of vary your communication for your promoters versus your detractor and going that extra step for folks who are having a bad experience and how you turn that around through exclusive offers, knowing what they’ve spent at your portfolio before. So I love that.

[00:13:44] Angela Berkey:  Exactly. And, of course, what makes this all successful is the what’s in it for me. So I think this is really key for our team members when we’re thinking about this. And the first kind of bullet here is incentives, and I think this is really important to build confidence with their teams. Not everybody is a salesperson, and so an outbound sales just doesn’t come naturally for a big percent of humans. So I think really leaning into a profitable incentive program for our team is important. And here too, just sharing some bruises I’ve had over the years, making sure there’s some gatekeepers in there. So do we have an inbound conversion goal? Do we have measurement to ensure that call results aren’t being gamified, if you will? Making sure that we’re auditing those is really key here. You don’t want an agent to basically book an inbound call and then say, let me call you back for that credit card. We wanna make sure that it’s legitimately an outbound sale because it’s tough. And then I think rewarding on what the agents want. So we know that with our upcoming Gen z into the workplace that they’re not everybody’s motivated by money. Sometimes it’s things like an extra PTO day or being able to pick their schedule or maybe it’s like a fun high-tech desk chair that they can have whether it’s in the office or at home. It could be something as simple as that. And then, of course, money, that can still be a big motivator, but I think it’s important to understand what’s gonna motivate your team to do this. And then kind of along with that, of course, is the contest. So thinking just is it an individual contest? Is it a team contest? Is there some kind of overall goal? Those are important things to consider. So really key there. And then recognition, kind of going along with the incentive piece, it’s how does our team like to be recognized? So not everybody likes to be recognized in public, so ensuring we really understand that and then meeting kind of their love language. So how do they feel loved is important here. So things recognition can be at a manager meeting or something like that, or it could be something as small as the GM dropping a thank you note into the team member that can be more meaningful. And then finally, gamification. So how do we make it fun? It’s not really a reservations example, but we currently in our Northeast have a team for front desk upsells where they’re doing bingo. And so there’s different things that they can do to win, and there’s, like, tiers that happen when you get diagonal or crossways. And so that’s just a fun thing I’ve seen. Reservations monopoly where they move around a board, and as you achieve certain things, you get different incentives. And then same thing with, like, everybody’s seen, like, the big award wheel where you can spin it and you can get it online in, like, Amazon or whatever. And so as team members achieve certain goals, they can spin the wheel, and they have a chance to win a gift card or lunch with the GM or whatever it is. You can get really fun and creative around that.

[00:16:45] Anisha Yadav:  Love those ideas. It’s amazing to keep your team motivated, and I’m sure your retention’s pretty high as well with all of these initiatives.

[00:16:51] Angela Berkey:  Yeah. I think that’s a really big piece here is that retention and, man, it’s a tough job market out there. We want the best of the best, so that’s a really key point, Anisha.

[00:17:00] Anisha Yadav:  That’s awesome.

[00:17:01] Melissa McMullin:  Great. Thank you, Angela. So for this next section, I’d like to cover ways that you can maximize your ancillary revenue through upsells, packages, and on property experiences. So we’re gonna take a look at some examples we’ve seen with our customers and throughout the industry as well. So the examples I’m going to go over, they’re meant to be omnichannels. So you can do these through email campaigns, voice campaigns, even both if you want to and you might want to. So ways to enhance the room through attribute based tactics. You’ve already got the reservation, so think through how can you maximize that revenue. Maybe you have some room types that are available for upgrade or you have an open room with a mountainside view or an oceanside view. These are great ways to upsell to current reservations through email or through your reservations team with an outbound call. Or perhaps with your data, you know you have a family with small children that has a stay coming up. So why not send them an offer with interconnecting rooms? These are all some great ways that you can think through on how to maximize your revenue with rooms that you already have available. And then another way to enhance the stay is with experience tactics. So these are focusing on total RevPar, not just room RevPar. So think about the amenities that you have on your property and how can you take advantage of them and create campaigns that focus on packages with your golf course, your spa treatments, or even adventure experiences like horseback riding.

[00:18:25] Anisha Yadav:  Yeah. And I think to add to what we were chatting about before on the whole experience with FIFA coming into your destinations to start thinking through, like Melissa said, the experience that you can deliver and it’s gonna be really competitive in the market. So how do you stand out with so much demand coming in to your cities is gonna be through experiences with on property and also the what the city is offering. So thinking through that. And, hopefully, you’ve already thought through it because it’s pretty much approaching really fast. So it’s gonna be a lot of international travelers too. So thinking through what do you need from a food and beverage experience to cater to that international demand too and making sure those talk tracks and the messagings are shared across the website, your email campaigns. And like Angela said, your reservation sales team also knows exactly what’s going on so they can speak to that on their calls too.

[00:19:11] Melissa McMullin:  And then ways to enhance the ease with your guests. So think about convenience and comfort tactics that you can do. So you can also use these offers on your checkout page in addition to your email and voice campaigns. If you’re collecting your guest data through the lead form and reservation sales, target those guests that you know have an early flight. You might wanna offer them an early check-in or a transfer from the airport if you have that available, or create a fun upsell package for their pet. If you have a pet friendly room, offer that to them with a dog bed and milk bones upon check-in. You never wanna underestimate how much pet parents wanna spoil their pets, so think through some creative ideas that you have that you can use to maximize that revenue. And finally, enhance the celebration of your guests that you have coming. So with the holidays coming up, Christmas and New Year’s, why not offer a bottle of champagne delivered to their room as an upsell package? Or if you have a guest that you know is coming to celebrate a birthday, send them an email, have your reservations team call, offer them an upgrade package to have a fun dessert delivered to their room, or to book a reservation at a restaurant you have on-site to help continue to celebrate that day for them. So we’ve reached the end of our webinar, and I hope you guys have been able to take away some great ideas and best practices. I wanna thank Angela again for joining us and giving us some ways that she’s seeing success with CoralTree. And just to recap the takeaways for you, so your unbooked inbound calls are missed potential revenue if you aren’t following up. So don’t let a chance for direct revenue pass you by just because they didn’t book on that first call. Capture the notes in your lead form and then use your follow-up and outbound campaigns to get those second chance bookings. Secondly, think of creative ways to motivate your reservations team to drive outbound revenue. So Angela shared some great ways that she motivates her team. And think of the ways that who you have on staff, what motivates them, give them a chance to shine and then reward them for it. And then finally, go beyond the room by creating compelling packages and upsell opportunities. So, again, don’t forget about your ancillary revenue. Think beyond that room and create special upsell packages based on all the wonderful things your property has to offer.

[00:21:18] Anisha Yadav:  Kind of recapping everything that we’ve shared so far in the past couple of months, we’ve been planning towards Black Friday, Cyber Monday and making sure our customers and hotels are prepared for it. So this is a one stop page with everything that we’ve presented so far. All the examples, success stories like Angela shared hers. We have more that’s on this web page. So it’s revenue.com/vfcm. And we’ll continue to update this between now and the holiday season with more examples, more thought leadership that we’re seeing in the industry. So make sure you’re on this page and check out all of the examples and get inspired and making sure that you guys can get the best value of what we’re seeing from market trend perspectives as well. And the next is a shout to Navigate. So this is our annual customer conference. So we’re gonna be at the Wigwam in Arizona from April. We just launched our registration page, so make sure you check out this link as well. And if you haven’t attended navigate before, I know Angela has, this is our three day event. We will start with education day, which will be led by our education team. So really going deep into all our products and how tos and learning more about our solutions. So you you can definitely come prepared with your questions as well. And the last two days, which is the main conference day, is focused with thought leaders. We’ve had McKinsey, Deloitte before. We have STAR signed up already this year too, so talking through similar market data and trends that we’re seeing. And we have customer led main stage sessions, breakouts, a lot of information that’s shared. So I wanna make sure that we share this early. I know we are in November, but the tickets do get sold out pretty fast. And we have an early bird right now. So make sure you check out the page and make sure you are factoring this into your 2026 budgets as well. Angela, how is your team prepping for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

[00:23:04] Angela Berkey:  Well, we definitely have been doing some homework. So I think there’s a few things. The first one being that ensuring that the reservations team is aware of the offer. Even better yet is if our reservation team’s kinda given a sneak peek of the offer, the terms and conditions. I think our teams that are on the front line have valuable feedback for our marketing teams before we launch something, so that feedback can be incredibly helpful before a launch. And then utilizing, I think, the Revinate platform. So when we’re creating those campaigns in that campaign phone number, ensuring we’re dropping in the URL with the actual offer, that helps both our on-site teams and overflow team with Resforce so that everybody has the most relevant information. Those are two really key things that I think will help set us up and things that we prepare for.

[00:24:02] Melissa McMullin:  Yeah. I think that’s super important, making sure all teams are on the same page, everybody know what the offer is, just really and it’ll help ease that guest experience.

[00:24:10] Angela Berkey:  Yeah. For sure.

[00:24:11] Anisha Yadav:  To add to that, I think what we’re seeing with other hotels too is starting early. So we’re seeing a lot of our hotels have started their exclusive early access sales already going live with segmenting that to your top spenders, your loyal guests, and making that cadence kind of begin early on so that by the time you come to Black Friday, Sabar Bande, and we all get those campaigns, inboxes get really cluttered. So starting early helps kind of stand out in that cluttered and competitive environment and get that reservation for your property early on.

[00:24:40] Angela Berkey:  Yeah. I think just to add on to that, I absolutely agree. And I think it goes back too to some of the things that we talked about is when you are segmenting. Your highest valued guests, are they the ones that just organize, send them the same generic email, or does that strategy look different? And and to your point, Anisha, I mean, we’ve already launched many of our properties. Those have been sent out, and we wanna stand out from the crowd. So we just don’t wanna be another email on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Exactly.

[00:25:09] Melissa McMullin:  Alright. I know we are coming up to the end of our webinar here. So, Angela, in 2025, what has been the most successful outbound initiative your team has seen?

[00:25:18] Angela Berkey:  Yeah. I’m pretty excited to share this one. It’s currently in progress. So there’s three phases to it. I won’t give up the property or the total amount, but I will tell you that their strategy was a little bit different in that they wanted to put reservations on the books for next summer, but start now. So they sent out a snail mail postcard to their most loyal repeat guest that say during that time period and said, we’ll be calling you. And then divided that into the three phases. And so now that agent that sent out that corresponding postcard is following up with that guest. So phase one has already produced almost 6 figures for us, which has been very successful. I’ve been celebrating it all week, and I think our teams are probably tired of me talking about it. It’s really a best practice. And so now we’re rolling into phase two and phase three, and we’ll see what happens. So hope to have some updated numbers to share with you all when we have them.

[00:26:15] Anisha Yadav:  That’s awesome. Congrats. Thank you. Okay. So I think with that, we’re coming to the end of our session. Thank you again for being part of this three part series of our Black Friday, Cyber Monday prep and wish you all the very best for Black Friday sales. And like I said, we have the resource page live. We will keep it updated through end of this year with more examples and success stories. So make sure you check it out, and hope to see you back in our follow-up webinars. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you.

[00:26:48] Outro:  Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hotel Moment by Revinate. Our community of hoteliers is growing every week, and each guest we speak to is tackling industry challenges with the innovation and flexibility that our industry demands. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you’re listening on YouTube, please like the video and subscribe for more content. For more information, head to revinate.com/hotelmomentpodcast. Until next time, keep innovating.